Battle of Foret d'Ecouves

The Battle of Foret d'Ecouves (11 August 1944) was a battle of the Falaise Gap encirclement actions of the Invasion of Normandy phase during World War II, taking place 11 miles north of the city of Alencon in France. The French 2nd Armored Division under Philippe Leclerc failed to clear out the forest, so American soldiers of the US 90th Infantry Division under General George S. Patton stormed German positions in the forest and cleared it of mines and barricades.

Background
The US 90th Infantry Division came ashore in Normandy at Utah Beach as a part of the US 3rd Army of General George S. Patton during World War II's Operation Overlord. The American forces landed at Utah soon joined up with other US forces and pushed on Paris from the southwest, while British, Canadian, and Polish forces advanced from the northeast. The German-occupied territory in the center became known as the Falaise Gap. The Gap saw some of the fiercest fighting of World War II.

By 11 August 1944, the Polish 1st Armored Division and the Canadian Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders/Canadian 4th Armored Division had pushed the Germans back. The Poles, assisted by British SAS, defeated the Germans in a tank battle at St. Aigan-de-Cramesnil on the Caen-Falaise Road while the conservative Canadian commanders recuperated from their assault on Falaise in Operation Totalize. US forces teamed up with some of the Free French forces under Philippe Leclerc (commander of the French 2nd Armored Division) and pushed south to attack the German supply base at Alencon. However, the Foret d'Ecouves 11 miles to the north was lousy with mines and barricades set up by the 9th Panzer Division of the Wehrmacht, so the Allies set out to clear it.

Battle
The French initially captured the area, but they did a poor job at eradicating Axis forces in the area. The Germans remained in control of the forest and had control of a vast network of trenches and a supply depot in the center, and the American engineers sent to clear out the Germans did not return to their camp. Therefore, the US 90th Infantry Division had to be sent in to clear out the German defenses in harsh close-quarters combat in the forest.

The battle began at 4:00 PM with an attack on a German observation post on a ridge in the forest, and the 90th Division began their assault. During the combat, a squad of American soldiers under Sergeant Mike Dixon found out from a wounded Pvt. Krupin of the engineers that the Germans set up a supply depot in the woods to the north, so the squad of American soldiers launched an assault on the depot with aid from some other US troops. They succeeded in blowing up two caches of German weapons and ammunition and cleared out the tunnels where the German troops lived, and proceeded to head deeper into the forest. By the end of an hour, they had cleared out all of the German footsoldiers in the area and destroyed some German barricades using captured mortars. The forest was cleared at last, despite the heavy American casualties, and a day later the Americans captured Alencon from the Germans.